This year in Australia, with a new government in office, everything seemed ripe for change. Indeed, our new prime minister made it his first moving public gesture to say “sorry” to the indigenous people of the land and a great weight seemed to fall from our collective shoulders. There is hope too for the wretched refugees locked away for years in Australia’s infamous detention centres – quietly their refugee status is being acknowledged and they are slowly being absorbed into Australia’s multicultural mix, no one remembering that “we do not want people like that here.”

With a Labor government, there is hope too for a change of direction on Palestine and Israel. There had been a lot of talk about reverting to an even-handed policy before the elections and with the government’s foreign policy still in the pipeline, few thought that any statement out of the ordinary would be made until it is released. It was, therefore, quite a shock to hear that Prime Minister Rudd would move a motion honouring Israel’s 60 years of independence in the parliament while ignoring 60 years of Palestinian dispossession and suffering – the catastrophic upheaval of Palestinian society. That moving of the motion came and went, but not before Palestinian advocacy and support groups made it public knowledge much to the chagrin of the politicians who had hoped to keep it quiet.

The Palestinian Nakba or “Catastrophe” was not a one-off historical event beginning in 1948, but has been a continuous process of systematic violence, destruction, demonisation and oppression inflicted by the new nation-state of Israel on generations of indigenous Palestinians. That is what Australians need to see and 2 hear this year on this sixtieth anniversary of their precarious existence. Instead, they are seeing Israel officially lauded by our politicians and being given resounding plaudits in our newspapers. These articles, which most often appear with no balancing opinion or letters, far outweigh any articles published in defence of Palestine. The even-handed media policy seems only to have merit when a rare opinion on Palestine is given space. Then the reader is treated to the pros and cons with official imprimaturs from the Israeli embassy and/or Australia’s Zionist Federation.

In such an Israel-saturated environment, Palestine’s voice struggles to be heard. Yet every now and then, opportunities emerge that capture the imagination of the Australian public. One such moment was the launch of a newspaper advertisement for the “NOT IN OUR NAME” campaign, to protest the prime minister’s Israel motion in parliament. In just three days, Palestinian advocacy and support groups throughout Australia rallied together and produced more than 400 signatures from ordinary Australians and organisations, many of whom have had no involvement with Palestinian activism. Although the names endorsing the protest statement were enormously important, it was the willingness of everyone to provide the financial support for the costly newspaper advertisement that was really extraordinary.

Needless to say, an article, an editorial, and letters attacking the protest as, “dissent from the usual left-wing, anti-Israel suspects” accompanied the advertisement in The Australian. Given that it is Australia’s only national newspaper and one that reports daily on the Palestine/Israel conflict, one would like to believe that it would be above partisan politics, but not so. It has declared its bias all too often and now more than a month after our statement appeared in its pages, some of the signatories are being attacked - in particular two of Australia’s powerful unions – by articles that label them anti- Semitic: an accusation that makes criticising Israel synonymous with the “new anti-Semitism”.

As al-Nakba draws closer, these attacks are designed to frighten off anyone or any organisation of significance from endorsing the 3 follow-up campaign: this time, to request Australia’s prime minister and leader of the opposition to move a bipartisan motion in the Parliament acknowledging 60 years of Palestinian suffering as a consequence of Israel’s creation. If nothing else is done for al-Nakba in Australia, these two campaigns have brought Palestine to the attention of the highest levels of government and the media. They have also made a number of human rights and church groups uncomfortable because now they are being challenged to take a stand on Palestinian human rights rather than avoid it on the pretext of it being too political. Whether the prime minister accedes to our request or not, we believe that we have at least demonstrated to so many different groups and people that there is a voice for Palestine in Australia.

So, which organisations brought about this shift in Palestinian advocacy? Effectively, it was a combined effort of every person and group wanting to bring truth, reason and justice into a debate that has been hijacked by the Israel lobby since the 1950s. It was led by Adelaide’s Australian Friends of Palestine (AFOPA) and Melbourne’s Australians for Palestine (AFP) and Women for Palestine (WFP) and has since been supported in equal measure by groups in the other states, including members of the Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV) who have been maliciously vilified for having the courage to speak up. The speed with which the word got around demonstrated the effectiveness of networking - a very strong feature of the Queensland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (QPSC), which is in constant contact to provide the support needed to those taking responsibility for the campaign.

And it is not over yet. Endorsements for the letters are still coming in. Some people are writing their own letters and sending them on to the prime minister. Petitions are circulating. Representations are being made to members of parliament. The approaches cover a broad spectrum of Australian society, and that is as it should be – churches, trade unions, human rights organisations, peace groups, politicians, lawyers, academics, eminent persons. For everyone involved, the question of fairness and compassion is paramount and for a prime minister who has already acknowledged the suffering of 4 our own indigenous people, the case for Palestine should be just as compelling.

In any event, al-Nakba will not pass unmarked or unnoticed in Australia on 15 May. In Melbourne, AFP and WFP will be joined by members of the Palestinian community in a candlelight vigil that we hope will bring many Palestinians in their beautiful national dress to the streets of Melbourne. Others have the option of wearing the Nakba T-shirt, specially-designed by Melbourne artist Dora McPhee, showing an almost barren olive tree, its outstretched branches and roots representing the displacement, dispossession, and suffering of a fractured Palestinian society under occupation and its bare roots gripping the land of Palestine from which it had grown, long before there was ever a State of Israel. Ribbons with the keffiyeh pattern will allow every person to declare their support for the Palestinians. They come with a card that explains the meaning of al-Nakba and the full extent of Israel’s ethnic cleansing project. In fact, both T-shirts and ribbons are available to everyone and have already been taken up enthusiastically by other groups in Australia and overseas.

The vigil will be followed by a film screening of Mohammad Alatar’s Jerusalem: The East Side Story and other documentaries – a tribute by the Palestinian community to all Palestinians who have suffered, and hopefully, an experience for Australians who all too rarely see the Palestinian narrative. In Sydney, another Palestinian group, the Coalition of Peace and Justice for Palestine (CJPP) will be holding a reception at the State Parliament where special guest Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, will speak to the assembled guests. In other parts of the country, vigils and rallies will take place with Fair Go for Palestine (FGFP) mobilising in Queensland, the Melbourne Palestine Solidarity Network (MPSN) in Melbourne, and the Perth branch of Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA) in Western Australia.

The biggest photographic and art exhibition yet shown in Australia on the Palestinian narrative will be staged by AFP and WFP in Melbourne on 17 and 18 May. British photographer Rich Wiles has been invited to Australia to exhibit his works, “Portraits of Palestine”, 5 as well as the works of the children from the Lajee Centre, Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem – “Our Dreams and our Nightmares” and “Dreams of Homes”. These exhibitions have been staged in Britain, all over the European continent and in the United States. They are haunting portrayals of Palestinian life of both the present and past memories. Rich Wiles will also speak about his experiences working with the children in the refugee camp in the shadow of the Separation Wall and Israel’s ever-present occupation army and how every minute of their lives is a continuation of the original Nakba.

As part of this exhibition, WFP will present the Palestinian historical record in seven panels of collage named “Dispossession – Parts of a Whole” which was a collective effort put together in 2002 under the guidance of Melbourne artist Dora McPhee. Her own talents and extraordinary understanding of Palestinian history will be displayed in a selection of oil paintings from her previous exhibitions entitled “Palestine Lost” and “Disappearing Palestine”.

Although the photographs and paintings capture particular moments in time, they are indeed an accurate portrayal of every Palestinian’s story and few could fail to be moved by a people existing without freedom in the most humiliating of circumstances. For visitors who want to learn in more detail about the current situation, power-point presentations will be given by Michael Shaik, the public advocate for AFP; book readings on the meaning of al-Nakba for the children of the camps will be given by Rich Wiles; and Ali Abunimah will speak on prospects for the future at public and private lectures. Books, brochures and various reading materials will be available, as well as slide shows and films. And for those who want to appreciate the rich history and culture of Palestinian traditions, there will also be samples of exquisite embroideries and products reminiscent of Palestine’s past agricultural abundance.

In Australia’s capital city Canberra, Australians for Justice and Peace in Palestine (AJPP) plans to organise meetings between politicians and Ali Abunimah when he arrives to speak at the Australian National University. Ideally, this would coincide with a bipartisan motion in the parliament that would not only acknowledge the 6 enduring narrative of indigenous Palestinians and the suffering that has been visited on them over the past 60 years, but also their courageous journey in their struggle for the right to exist in their own land. AFOPA, AFP, and WFP are still working towards that end. We will have to wait and see if the Australian government is indeed committed to an even-handed policy on Palestine and Israel. If it is not, our work will be really cut out for us in the weeks and months ahead.

The focus right now though is on that solemn week in May. Through a website created for that purpose (www.1948.com.au), Australia’s Palestinian advocacy and support groups will be offering the public the most comprehensive exposé of the Palestinian tragedy within their means, but all with the same passion for justice, freedom, and peace that unites every supporter of Palestine and its long-burdened people across the globe. Perhaps this year will see the changes for which we have all been working; perhaps this year, the Palestinians will be free to pursue their dreams. But if not this year, it will happen.

Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine and also a founding members of Australians for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia and the editor of its websites. She can be reached by e-mail at: karkar@iinet.net.au or by phone at: +61 3 9882 9236

For more information, visit www.australiansforpalestine.com or www.1948.com.au

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